The Butterfly Effect
by golden gibberish
Summary: One-Shot. Ianto's a little bit confused on the whole time-travel thing. Jack's happy to explain - and get away from his paperwork. A little bit of nothing. Jack/Ianto.


Disclaimer: I do not own Torchwood. Or Jack's coat.

I wish I did.

Sigh.

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"Jack?" Ianto asked slowly.

Jack looked up from his desk with a quick wink. "Yes, dear?"

Ianto rolled his eyes, used to Jack. "I was just wondering… this Doctor of yours…"

Jack tensed slightly. A while ago, and the butler-esque might not have noticed it. But Ianto and Jack were closer now (Ianto really hated the word boyfriend. Jack loved it, though.), and Ianto had gotten better at reading him.

"Yes, dear?" Jack repeated.

"You traveled with him, right?"

"Ianto, sweetheart, I swear we weren't-"

"Oh, no, that's not what I was going to ask. And really, if I was going to obsess about every one of your past… flings, I would be obsessing for a very long time."

"Oh. Well then…?"

"No, it's just that I looked him up a while ago. He's a time traveler, right?"

"Yes?"

"Well, so you've been to the future, right?"

"I have."

"So you know what happens."

"Not exactly." Jack got up and stretched, grabbing his RAF coat (Ianto had a _huge_ crush on that coat) and slipping it on. "Let's take a walk?"

"Don't you have a rather large pile of paperwork sitting right there?"

"Exactly. Come on."

Ianto shrugged. He'd have to force the immortal to do it later, but for now he really was curious.

"Tosh, we're running out for a bit," Jack called, and the pretty Asian woman smiled cheerfully over one of her many screens. Ianto took the chance to snatch up his own coat.

"Alright. I'll lie to Owen and Gwen, then, shall I? Or they'll want to leave too."

"Tosh, you're a doll!"

"Should I be jealous?" Ianto asked dryly as the left – taking the lift, for some reason.

"Ianto, you have absolutely _no_ reason to be jealous." Jack smirked playfully, taking Ianto's hand and dragging him down a random street. Ianto glanced around. All the shop fronts were gaily decorated for Christmas. Snow sparkled on the trees and lights hung from every available surface, and the moon was just coming out. It was a beautiful evening.

"Back to the subject at hand?" Ianto pressed.

"Fine, fine. I have seen _a _future, yes."

"_A_ future?"

"You see, you people are so convinced that time is linear. Everything happening in a straight row, just like that." He swept his arm in a line, nearly knocking over a pedestrian along the way. "Whoops. Sorry, love!" he shouted to the irate man behind him.

He got an acid glare in response.

"Well, aren't you happy? Merry Christmas!" Jack scoffed, and Ianto hauled him away.

"Straight row?" he prompted.

"But time isn't straight. To quote an old friend," here he grinned, "time is a ball of wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff."

"Sorry, you lost me."

"Well, one little thing happening resounds all across time. I saw a _possible _future. What _might_ happen. Time can be rewritten, and it's happening all the time. In fact, all time is happening at this very instant. I could change the future, or you could, and we might not even realize it."

"The butterfly effect?" Ianto spotted a warm-looking, cheery shop, and he led Jack into it.

"Exactly! Ah, two hot chocolates, yes, Ianto?" Jack spun to face Ianto, who shrugged.

"Sure."

"Coming up!" the waitress nodded (and Ianto swore he heard her say to the other behind the counter as they got out cups, "Why are all the bloody cute ones gay?")

"I'd order coffee, but no brew will ever match up to yours. I swear, you're magic."

"I'm gonna go ahead and take that as a compliment."

"Please do. Thank you, love." Jack accepted the hot drinks with a wink, and the waitress flushed heavily.

The couple sat down in a charming little booth with a window seat. Ianto felt very happy all of the sudden – he had a very cute man sitting across from him, the night was gorgeous, and the chocolate was delicious.

"So. Butterfly effect. The future is so easily changed."

"But can't you only change it if you know what's going to happen?"

"Not necessarily. Say you ran outside, right now, and started waving your arms around."

"Why?"

"I don't know, because I said it? So you're waving your arms around, and some passing woman sees you. She wonders idly how many lunatics are just wandering around."

"Hey!"

"Be fair, dear, a person running around on a night like this waving around his arms is probably loony."

"I'm not-"

"She goes home and looks it up. The numbers shock her, and she, out of the goodness of her heart, starts a foundation for homeless lunatics. And so, that one crazy man who would have otherwise shot some random person is being taken care of. So he doesn't shoot that random person. And that random person runs for, oh, I don't know, some government position and wins. Because he's in charge, some other man isn't. So when, say, aliens invade-"

"Alien invasions?"

"Really, sweetheart, after everything-"

"Yeah, yeah, fine."

"So when aliens invade the other man doesn't piss them off and get the Earth blown up. But you had no idea that going outside and waving your arms around would save the world, did you?"

"Nope."

"But now you might _not_ go outside and wave your arms around because I told you all this."

"Um, I do happen to like the Earth…"

"But maybe if you do, it'll be too late, because you're talking to me and the woman has already passed by."

"And Earth goes boom."

"But maybe that night on the telly she sees an advert that makes her look up the numbers of homeless loonies and Earth doesn't go boom."

"And what does this have to do with the future you saw?"

"Nothing is set in stone. Time can be rewritten. The future I saw may very well not exist."

"But hang on – the now is the future for the people in our past. So what's to say if this is going to exist?"

"Because it does."

"What?"

"Well, you exist, don't you?"

"Yes."

"It might change, and we might cease to exist, and we, and everyone else, might never know." Jack squeezed Ianto's hand encouragingly. "But it doesn't do any good to worry about that at all. Because we're living right now in this time, and it's real for us."

"That's… somehow completely reassuring and yet totally not at the same time."

"Yes, it is, isn't it?"

"So we're writing time, right now? And we can change it?"

"Almost always."

"Almost?"

"There are a few points in time that can't be changed. Can't be rewritten. They're called fixed points, and if they _don't_ happen, say, a time traveler messes them up, things get complicated."

"Oh."

"Yeah. But don't worry, fixed points are _really_ hard to change."

"Good, I guess."

"Very."

"What happens if you change history? Like, say, I kill Henry the Eighth?

"Then Henry will always have been killed by you. He was an ugly bloke."

"This seems hard. Also, you _met_ Henry the Eighth?"

"Yup."

"Yup to which?"

"Both."

"Wait – how many famous dead people _have_ you met?"

"A lot. We should probably get back before Owen and Gwen get annoyed."

"Yeah… come on."

Walking back to the Hub, hand in hand, Ianto felt very lucky.

Also kind of confused.

Time travel sounded needlessly confusing. Really, who invented it? Stupid idea.

(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

Thanks much for reading, darling dearests! Please **review**, because you would just love to make my day. Or maybe you would love to point out any errors, which would, believe it or not, also make my day. I don't mind being told I'm wrong, people!

(Also – Jack and Ianto? Totally adorable.)


End file.
